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Texts:

"Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD" (Lamentations 3:40).

"The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings" (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

Here are some household tips you might find helpful:

-If you have a small room, dark colors can often make it look bigger.

-Furniture that seems to have no use can be repurposed and brought back to life with just a good sanding and a new coat of stain or paint.

-A bargain at a yard sale isn't a bargain if it's something you will never use.

-Photos are great ways to trigger a happy memory, but duplicates and pictures out of focus are just more clutter.

-Heavy dust on a toy or game is a great indication that you don't use it enough to justify it taking up space in your home.

-Putting like colored clothes together in the closet helps you find similar items quickly.

These are all tips from the television show my wife loves to watch - "Clean Sweep." In that show, cluttered areas of selected homes are cleaned and redesigned by professionals. The homeowners are given two days to sort the clutter that has taken over their homes. They have to remove everything and place it in piles labeled "Keep," "Sell" and "Toss." When the rooms are done, the transformations are usually so amazing that they are hard to believe.

Don't you love that imagery of a clean sweep? I think we all need to have a clean sweep.

In earlier sermons, I have discussed the first three of the Twelve Steps to recovery: 1) "We admitted we were powerless over the effects of our separation from God and that our lives had become unmanageable." 2) "We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." 3) "We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him."

Step Four requires that we make a "clean sweep" of our lives. It says simply, "We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

Just as any business would take inventory of its stock, we take inventory of our lives. An inventory is an itemized list or catalog of goods, or property, usually taken annually. A moral inventory is a list of our weaknesses and our strengths.

I don't really like topical sermons, like this one, because I worry that they may turn into just so much advice. I prefer that my sermons rise out of the text. So this week, I have been struggling to make the connection between Step Four and the Bible. I finally found it in the person of Job.

Job suffered as much as anybody in the Bible. In the first 30 chapters he talks relentlessly about his pain and endures the worthless advice of his friends. But finally, in chapter 31, Job conducts his own moral inventory. These will be his last recorded words in Job.

The chapter begins with Job saying, "Does he not see my ways, and number all my steps? …let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!"

Then he looks at every area of his life, "If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit… If my heart has been enticed by a woman, and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door… If I have rejected the cause of my male or female slaves, when they brought a complaint against me… If I have withheld anything that the poor desired, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail… or have eaten my morsel alone, and the orphan has not eaten from it… If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or a poor person without covering… If I have raised my hand against the orphan, because I saw I had supporters at the gate… If I have made gold my trust, or called fine gold my confidence… If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, or because my hand had gotten much… If I have rejoiced at the ruin of those who hated me, or exulted when evil overtook them…"

After that moral inventory, Job was silent. And a few chapters later, we find God responding to him and even restoring him. It is a great Biblical example of what Step Four asks us to do.

In a moral inventory we note resentments and grudges, fears and lies. The Big Book says, "Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to the causes and conditions" (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 64). We can use the inventory to decide which areas of our lives need changing, and which areas seem to be the way we want them to be.

Being totally honest is vital to self-discovery. The two descriptive adjectives "searching and fearless" are important words in the sentence. When we really examine our lives, we will find that it does require us to be fearless and searching. Anything less, will not do.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings."

When I visited WestCare last week, the men there shared with me their experiences with Step Four. At WestCare, they are required to put their moral inventory on paper. They have special forms that lead them to examine their resentments, fears and even their sex lives.

Resentment results from hiding the bitter hurts that have tarnished our lives. It often evokes anger, frustration, and depression. Holding on to resentment causes stress, anxiety, and uncontrollable feelings of anger.

During my seminary days, the professors of pastoral care liked to say that depression is anger turned inward. I remember that I never agreed with that, because I knew that some depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain and has nothing to do with life circumstances. But I have finally decided that we can turn that sentence around and it makes perfect sense. "Anger turned inward leads to depression." Any time we bottle up fears, resentments and anger, we will find ourselves with symptoms like depression. But the real cause are the emotions we are bottling up inside.

Resentment is harboring of animosity against a person or group of people whom I feel has mistreated me. It is unresolved anger. It is a lack of forgiving and the inability to let go and forget. It is unresolved grief over a difficult loss. It may be a long-term suffering in silence. It may be a grudge we hold. Resentment is a cancer robbing us of contentment in life.

Irrational thinking often underlies our resentments and anger. We may say to ourselves statements like these:

"No matter what I do it is never good enough, so why try?"

"People are out to get me so, I'll reject them before they reject me."

"There is no way I can forgive or forget my negative past."

"I'll never win at anything I try."

"What's done is done, so let it be."

"I've never been given a break in the past; why should I expect anything different now?"

"It will never change; why try to alter the situation between me and them."

I think 1 John 4:18 can apply to resentment as well as to fear, "There is no fear (or resentment) in love, but perfect love casts out fear (and resentment)///

As I worked through Step Four for myself, I came up with an uncomfortable list of words that sometimes apply to me. Those words included "self-defeating, living in the past, living for the future, anxious, fearful, withholding, resentful, unwilling to change, and stubborn." And those are only the words that I am willing to admit in public! Sometimes the results of Step Four are not pretty.

Having such a list in writing is a way of honestly looking at ourselves. We can never make a clean sweep unless we get everything out, and that requires some courage.

My recovering friend told me that the first time he did Step Four, he wasn't completely honest about it. He said such a half-hearted effort was enough to keep him sober, but it wasn't enough for him to recover.

Later he revisited Step Four and was brutally honest with himself. The real root of his addiction was the pain deep inside. It was a spiritual matter for him. Only by a "searching and fearless" approach could he find the strength to cure that deep-seated pain.

The Big Book says, "When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically." p. 64

The Bible tells us to do the same thing. Lamentations 3:40 says, "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord." In Galatians 6:3-5, Paul writes, "For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads."

Imagine for a moment that you were blind and lived alone as many blind people do. In spite of their amazing degree of independence, blind people still need help in certain areas. If we were blind, we would need help especially with something like cleaning our home. How would we really know when we had cleaned well?

The same thing is true with all of us. We need help making a clean sweep in our lives. Ridding ourselves of unwanted behavior is impossible without God's help.

Most of us avoid going into our cluttered rooms so that we don't have to face the mess. For me, it's the garage which seems to collect clutter like no other place in the house. But the only way to a clean house is to get all the clutter out in the open for examination. Then we can decide what we want to save, and discard what is no longer useful. We need to put our clutter into piles labeled "Keep" and "Toss."

We often avoid looking at the clutter of our lives. Only by taking a long, hard look at our resentments and fears can we ever make the decision to toss them out.

Real transformation never occurs without a clean sweep. For some of us, it is not just a matter of clutter; it has become a matter of life or death. For all of us, a clean sweep can lead to a happier life.

Once we have completed a "searching and fearless moral inventory," we can say with the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."